She wanted to be as independent as he was himself! As they’d both taught themselves to be.
Damn, he couldn’t take much more of this. His family had twisted his emotions since he was tiny, and he hated it.
Which was why it was important to keep the rest of him heart-whole and fancy-free, he told himself in the dark. He needed more involvement-emotional involvement-like a hole in the head.
So why did his confused thoughts keep drifting to Em?
His bed was hard against the wall-her wall. He turned over and surveyed it in the dark. What he desperately wanted was to communicate in some way-maybe tap Morse Code messages in the dark.
He gave a wry smile. She’d think he was crazy if he did.
Was her hair unbraided?
Oh, great, now what was he thinking? He stirred in his bed, easing his long frame around on his too-short mattress. Hell!
Leave Emily Mainwaring alone, he told himself firmly. You play with her and you play for keeps. And the last thing you want in your life is a woman.
But two women were there in his thoughts, and both seemed as needful.
Em and Anna.
His sister and his…
And my temporary partner, he told himself fiercely. My medical partner. Nothing else.
The phone rang at midnight.
Jonas was out in the hall to answer it by the third ring, but Em must have had an extension by her bed. As he lifted the receiver he could hear her already talking, and she’d obviously recognised the voice before the caller had identified herself. Jonas caught the urgency in her tone, and he unashamedly listened in.
‘Lori? Is that you?’ Em was saying. ‘Lori, I can’t hear you until you pull yourself together. Take two deep breaths and tell me what’s wrong.’
How had she picked up that it was her friend? The voice down the telephone was a terrified series of gasps, and to Jonas it could have been anyone.
But Em was right. It was Lori. There was a sharp intake of breath and then, finally, she made herself coherent.
‘Em, it’s Raymond. He…he came to dinner and we were watching television. He got up to go and then… Em, he’s collapsed and stopped breathing. He’s on the floor…’
‘Then you know how to do CPR and artificial respiration,’ Emily snapped. ‘Do it, Lori. Don’t think about anything else but keeping him alive. I’ll be there in two minutes. Lori, keep your head and move!’
Formula One drivers had nothing on Emily Mainwaring, Jonas decided. He’d hauled pants and a sweater over his pyjamas, and he’d only just reached the car as she gunned it into action. Then they were screaming down the street, Em’s hand flat on the horn to warn oncoming traffic. Her car was making enough noise to waken the dead.
They should be driving his Alfa, Jonas thought grimly, instead of Em’s battered sedan. But presumably she had everything she needed packed into her car, and he wasn’t arguing. Not that she had time to listen.
And he couldn’t get out of her car now-not at the speed she was moving. She hadn’t even acknowledged his presence as he’d launched himself into the car, and Jonas knew all her thoughts were on getting to her friend’s assistance as fast as possible.
‘Can I ring the ambulance?’ he asked as her tyres screeched around the first corner. She nodded, her eyes not leaving the road.
‘Yes.’ She motioned to the cellphone on the console. ‘Hit one. Tell them we have a cardiac arrest at Bay Beach Home Two. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what it sounds like. Then hit three. That’ll connect you to the air ambulance. If we pull him around he’s going to need critical care and we can’t give him that here. They’ll fly down from Sydney to collect him. Blairglen’s not big enough to support a major coronary care unit.’
‘Are you sure we’ll need them?’ Jonas was lifting the cellphone as he spoke.
‘No,’ she said grimly. ‘Of course I’m not sure. But if we’re lucky, we will. Tell them to be on standby anyway- and cross your fingers and toes and anything else you have at the ready.’
‘Right.’
But using the cellphone was harder than he’d thought. Em was cornering like her car was on rails-as it definitely wasn’t-and Jonas was hurled against the side of the car as she spun.
She wasn’t the least sympathetic. ‘Tighten your seat belt,’ Em snapped, still not looking at him. ‘I can’t slow down, and if you hit the door that hard again it could fly open. That’s all I need. A road casualty.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Whoops! He tightened his seat belt, ruefully acknowledging that if he’d been hurt it would have been his own stupid fault. Then he concentrated on contacting the ambulances.
Once again, Em’s attention was solely on her driving.
And finally he did it. The ambulance radio operators must have heard the desperation in his voice, caused by trying to stay upright in the face of Em’s frantic driving. He had no trouble convincing them their need was urgent, and by the time he was finished Em had halted in front of the Bay Beach Home.
And she didn’t stop. She didn’t even switch off the engine-just left the car standing open at the front door, flung herself out-she was wearing some sort of pale blue jogging suit that she must have worn to bed-and then she was gone.
Hell!
Jonas was accustomed to calls for the crash cart at hospital, and knew the speed with which the staff mobilised. She’d beaten even them, he thought dazedly. They’d have been lucky to have got here faster if Raymond had collapsed in a bed in a ward two floors below them in a major hospital.
He took a little longer than Em to go inside the house, though. He prioritised. Trusting Em to keep Ray’s breathing going, he took the time to switch off the engine, open the boot, grab the cardiac gear and follow.
The scene that met his eyes inside was dramatic. Raymond was slumped unconcious on the living-room floor, with Em working furiously on him and Lori looking on. Raymond’s face was as grey as Lori’s was white.
He must be in total cardiac arrest, Jonas thought, asking no questions and setting the gear up fast. The man was in his late thirties or early forties, and he was definitely portly. He was wearing a business suit. Lori or Em must have hauled his tie away and ripped his shirt open, but he had every appearance of a businessman who’d spent too much time behind his desk and not enough time in the open air.
There was no more time for appraisal. Em looked up from pushing breath into Raymond’s chest and saw him. Her face cleared as she saw he was setting up what she needed most, and she moved to make room for him.
‘CPR’s not working,’ she told him. ‘Lori can do it like a professional, and she has been, but she’s had no response.’
So it was the paddles. A replay of Charlie.
But not with the same results. Please?
They worked hard and fast, with Lori taking over Raymond’s breathing, which left the doctors free to work on his chest.
One jerk.
Nothing.
‘Come on. Come on!’
It was a prayer, muttered aloud by Em after the second jerk, and then, magically, Raymond’s chest heaved of its own accord.
For a moment everyone else in the room stopped breathing. Waiting…
And then there came a searing, ragged gasp that had Lori collapsing in a sodden heap over her boyfriend’s chest. ‘Oh, Ray. Don’t die. Come on, Ray, you can do it.’
‘Move back, Lori,’ Em said, tugging her friend gently away so the paddles were clear if they needed them again, but there was hope written all over her face. She looked around to find what she needed, but Jonas, once again, was anticipating her needs.
There was oxygen waiting. Once Ray was breathing for himself, they could get on a mask. They could set up an intravenous drip and begin to dissolve the clot with medication.
